Page 35 of Ahelno
“No, never,” she replied. “She did tell us that she could sing and dance as well as play music, but I never thought to ask for a demonstration.”
My body hummed at the thought of watching Andie dance. Or to dance with her - even better.
The male began alone at the piano, not with Andie’s more obvious skill, but well enough. Then Andie joined in. From the first note, I was captivated. Her voice sent a shiver racing across my skin, then deeper still - through muscle, bone, and lifeblood - until it seemed to resonate inside my very soul. I closed my eyes, and brilliant colors exploded across the darkness of my mind. Waves of sound wrapped around me, lifting me into a state of euphoria unlike anything I had ever experienced. For a few perfect moments, there was no prison, no shame, no grief. Only her voice.
Even after the final note faded and awareness slowly returned to my body, the feeling lingered: a deep, all-encompassing peace that soaked into me like raindrops in a parched desert.
I blinked my eyes open and noticed that, like me, the other Ptexari appeared to be slowly awakening from a trance. Andie and the male human were both on stage, holding hands and whispering to one another. They were not in the positionsthat I remembered them being in when I first closed my eyes. How much time had passed?
“Lumanela,” voices around me whispered, and the stories came to mind. How the Lumanela were the blessed children of the gods, with magic in their voices. As one, the people around me fell to their knees, myself and Katishnela included. We could not stand in the face of such a wonder. If she had asked me to rip out my hearts at that moment and lay them at her feet, I would have done so with a smile on my face.
I had not spent enough time with my human mate to read her facial expressions well. But through the bond, I could feel embarrassment, confusion, and no small amount of fear.
“Ummm, thank you all, and please rise,” she said, voice seemingly tight with nerves. “Leo and I will retire for the evening.” Before anyone could recover, both humans scurried from the stage and exited the ballroom.
CHAPTER 38
Andie
I led Leo to the receiving room where I usually had lunch with the royal family.
“What the hell was that?” he asked as soon as the door closed.
“That was an old Ptexari legend come to life,” I said. I told him the story of the Lumanela.
“Do you think humans lived here before?” he asked.
“I have no idea, but I’m starting to think so. At the very least, it seems the Ptexari have come into contact with humans before. Blonde humans, anyway.” I replied.
“So what happens now?”
“My plan is to hide until King Akapa comes to find me. Unless you have any other ideas.”
“Nope, hiding sounds like an excellent plan to me!” he said.
I laughed. “Good. I’ll get some Oonag from the replicator. It’s bitter, but you get used to it. So tell me your story,” I said. “How did another human end up in outer space? How long have you lived on your planet? I want to know everything.”
Leo settled on a cushion, and I took the one next to him, setting the Oonag on the small table between. “I was a senior in high school when I was taken,” he said, and I gasped. Leolooked like he was in his late 20s, and it hadn’t occurred to me that he had been taken when he was so young. How awful.
“It was Halloween. I worked nights and weekends at a local restaurant in North Carolina. The restaurant was closing, and I was going to a Halloween party at a friend’s house. My boyfriend was going as Superman, and I was going as Wonder Woman.”Boyfriend. Got it.
“I was going to meet him at the party right after work, so I went ahead and put on my costume. Then I headed out the back door with the trash while my manager locked up. I heard a strange noise behind the dumpster and next thing I knew, I was waking up inside a spaceship.” Well, that sounded familiar.
“I didn’t really understand what was going on at the time, but the Grays were pretty pissed when they figured out I wasn’t a woman. It was a great costume,” he chuckled. “They argued a bit and locked me in a cell. It wasn’t until later that I found out they sold me to a researcher on Coromonn. He had a stable of exotic animals, and he was excited to have me in his zoo. It didn’t take him long to figure out I was human, even though we’re pretty rare out here.”
“Wait, what are the Grays? And why did they care that you weren’t a woman?” I asked, remembering the gray being I saw behind my college dorm.
“Oh, the Grays are a particular species of alien. They have a big, long name, but most species, including us on Earth, just call them the Grays because they’re light gray all over. And when you see alien depictions in movies and TV, it’s usually them - the tall skinny bodies, the giant heads, and big black eyes. There are tiers of intelligent species, and the Grays are near the top because they exist in multiple dimensions. Theycan also be at different places at the same time, which means they can reach Earth and distant planets in a way that other species can’t. Most of them act as intergalactic police, I guess, but some of them are active traffickers. And human women are at the top of the list for sex trafficking.”
“Wait, what?” I had barely wrapped my head around the interdimensional existence - sooo many questions - but got sidetracked by the sex trafficking.
That was an unexpected turn.
“Yeah, ok, this is where things get weird. Most species, even aliens, have two genders. Some have a third, and some are asexual, but two genders is pretty much the norm. But for some reason, the females of most species don’t orgasm. They go into heat once or twice a year, where they’ll have sex with pretty much any male for the purposes of reproduction, but they don’t climax. The drive is there for reproduction, but that’s it.
Human females are one of the few intelligent species that can orgasm. And have sex anytime, and for recreational purposes. I mean, there are other mammals that also orgasm, but it’s generally taboo to have sex with anything below a tier 3 species. That doesn’t stop them from forcing themselves on women of higher-level species, though. Also, y’all have tits, which most males across species find super attractive. Even on other species that do have tits, they don’t really appear unless the female is actively breastfeeding. So yeah, human women are near the top of desirability, which makes them vulnerable to trafficking. They’re still pretty rare out here because most of the Grays are actively trying to protect Earth from pirates, but there are always a few that slip through. There’s a lot of money to be made for a human female. Notso much for human males, though, so that’s why the Grays who took me were pissed off when they discovered they’d snatched a dude.”
“Holy shit, that’s wild,” I said.
